SBenegaL

Category: Technology

  • The Coming Wave – Mustafa Suleyman & Michael Bhaskar

    I have been keeping an eye on the excitement that has been circulating over the last few years. Observing many friends utilize the tools that have become more accessible, I began to pay closer attention to various concerns that I believed AI tool developers needed to consider thoughtfully. While searching for a book that would provide me with a solid perspective on the issues that were troubling me, my friend Kesava suggested that I read this book.

    This was a fantastic suggestion. In many respects, the various concerns that were troubling me were interconnected and categorized under distinct headings. Some of the topics addressed in the book include the challenge of containment, the significance of incentives, and the difficulties these technologies (the book discusses not only AI but also several other forces with similar traits) present to the concept of a nation-state.

    The book ends with some reflections that Suleyman offers regarding the methods of containment and the importance of being proactively engaged in it.

    I strongly suggest this book to all entrepreneurs or those looking to become entrepreneurs who aim to create in the AI landscape, where it is essential to take a proactive approach in designing AI systems. The book provides valuable guidance on potential steps that these AI teams might take as they develop technology to tackle the challenges they will ultimately face.

  • Motivation – Technology & Recognition-Ownership

    In the last byte, we began discussion on the external incentives and their influence on the motivation, with the interest of providing a historical perspective. In today’s byte, we continue the discussion on external incentives and attempt to understand a few more concepts – primarily technology as an enabler and the role of recognition and ownership.

    Technology:
    Adam smith around whose work we had discussed in the last byte had defined the role of technology in economics pretty clearly. His view was that nation’s wealth was primarily determined by the labor force productivity – and more efficient and effective the labor force was, the greater would be the national abundance. Technology in this journey would play the role of a force multiplier, for the labor. Thus, technology attempts to increase the profit generated, and effective handling of the technology could create a good incentive to create greater wealth.

    Recognition and Ownership:
    It is almost common in today’s organization to have an employee recognition programs, flexible benefit package, stock ownership plans etc. These are based largely on the work of Adam Smith and Fredrick Taylor. The incentives today’s organizations do not limit themselves to only economic forms, they also take material forms – like recognition plaques, watches etc.

    Research has also found that the ownership that employees feel with their work has a crucial impact on the performance of the organization. We have talked about organizational citizenship behavior and other such positive behaviors early when employees feels the ownership of the task.

    Furthering from here, we begin discussing individual theories on motivation for the next few bytes.

  • Look beyond technology when starting a Product Business

    If you have been following your friends who are starting off closely with a new technology business idea – you would have probably found the following scenario:
    Very often, one finds engineer entrepreneur who comes up with an interesting insight from technology and attempt venturing out on his/her entrepreneurial journey. Invariably, one finds that most of these  entrepreneurs focus on developing their products for a very long time, so much so that, they do not know who their market is! They wouldn’t have even spoken with a single customer! They face a constant internal resistance and find it hard to get off their office where they are comfortable with their technical expertise and step into selling the product they are building!
    In making these statements I do not intend to say that entrepreneurs who are technologist cannot build a business – it is an attempt to get them to move out of their offices into the shoes of a businessman.
    As some one who has started a business, begin with the following understanding:
    1. Technology is not Business – Technology is generally a component of business that helps in delivery. 
    2. Get out and Sell – It is important to sell the product that you are building, if you don’t sell the product there is no commercial use of product you might build.
    3. Engage with your customers early – Do not wait for the complete product that you think has a market. Go in with simple to use features and see how the market reacts and listen to what it wants.The following suggestions could help you to start on this:
    • List product features into a priority (your thought) and freeze in on the first 2-3 features in this list
    • Make a list of customer (prospective) that you think could benefit from these features
    • Quickly build this feature set (do-not change as of now)
    • Approach a Customer and ask him to try out as a commercially free product but give you feedback
    • Listen to the feedback – improve your product with the feedback

    Clearly, listening to the market early is important to ensure that your product is market accepted and it is important to do it early than late in the process of building your business. Get out of your comfort zone – businesses really need to be as close to their customer and not in the high rise offices…